Make Home Attractive.
Some one has said that the three sweetest words in our language are, “Mother, Home and Heaven.” We may well pity that being so unfortunate as not to have enjoyed the blessings of a happy home, for in the battle of life we need to be armed with the counsels and prayers of a mother, and all holy and sweet home influences, if we are to successfully meet the snares and perils which will beset us. Home is the paradise in which this wonderful world is first revealed to our growing consciousness, and as from its safe shelter we look out upon life we form our estimate of it according to the impressions and teachings we there receive. If the home is brightened with the sunshine of love, its radiance is reflected in all around us, and the whole world appears to us only as one family,—full of kind thoughts, tender sympathies, gentle ministrations and noble deeds. If the home life is sour, gloomy and unhappy, then we see the whole world through the same atmosphere of misery and discontent; and it is to us only a dull, dismal prison, crowded with selfish souls, whose petty strifes and base actions cause perpetual turmoils and unhappiness.
Parents, depend upon it, you have no holier nor higher work to do than to make home attractive. In after years your endeavors will be repaid a hundred fold by the grateful affection, the happy memories, and the noble lives of your children, who, whatever their success elsewhere, will ever turn to the old homestead and its inmates as the Mecca of their earthly pilgrimage.